Intel will launch a whopping 35 Atom-based tablets next year. Those tablets are powered by two different platforms -- Oak Trail, which features fancier I/O, and Moorestown, a leaner platform. (Source: Intel via CNET)

[Click to enlarge] Moorestown does not support PCIe or SATA, thus only Linux distributions like Meego and Android can run on it. Windows 7 tablets require Intel's alternative Oak Trail platform. (Source: Intel via Anandtech)

Oak Trail and Moorestown are looking good, Medfield not so much

Determined
not to be left behind as society transitions towards a more mobile
computing paradigm, Intel vowed to deliver strong entries to the
tablet and smartphone sectors. At a Barclays Capital 2010
Global Technology Conference, it delivered an update on its
progress. Long story short, things are looking good on the
tablet front, but not so good on the smartphone
front.

We
have two flavors of products. One carries our PC legacy, the
codename is Oak Trail. This is for the Windows environment. That's
important for people who want the advantage of PC peripheral
compatibility. All the printers in the world work, all the USB
drivers in the world work. Any PC peripheral will work perfectly well
with Oak Trail. [It is a] very solid, high-performance, low-power
version of Atom.

We have an even more optimized [Atom] version
called Moorestown. For people who want the most lightweight, longest
battery life, thinnest machine. It doesn't carry the PC
compatibility. It's got the x86 instruction set, so Internet
compatibility is there, but we're not worrying about legacy support
[in Windows].

Oak
Trail and Moorestown are
both four-chip designs -- a power management chip, a wireless I/O
chip, and North/South Hubs. They share identical North Hub
chips, with both having a Lincroft system-on-a-chip up north.
The Lincroft SoC includes one or more Silverthorne-derivative Atom
cores, an Intel GMA 600 graphics core (OpenGL ES 2.0, OpenGL 2.1,
OpenVG 1.1, 400MHz), a memory controller, and video encode/decode
units. The entire chip is produced on a 45 nm process.

Where
the two platforms differ is in their South Hub (also referred to as
the "Platform Control Hub" - PCH). Moorestown's South
Hub includes an SSD controller, USB controller, an image processing
blocks for webcams, audio I/O, and more. Moorestown's PCH is
dubbed "Langwell".

By contrast Oak Trail
packs a beefier PCH dubbed "Whitney Point", which adds PCIe
and full SATA connectivity to the mix. Thus, as Otellini
stated, Windows 7 tablets will only be able to run on Oak Trail.
Both Oak Trail and Moorestown's PCHs are built on a 65 nm
process.

The power management IC (PMIC), which Intel is
contracting to an unknown third party adds one more chip to the
mix. The last chip(s) is/(are) the "Evans
Peak" Hub, the wireless hub of the system. Intel offers a
single chip solution, which will support Bluetooth 2.1, GPS, Wi-Fi,
and 2.5 GHz Wi-Max (incompatible with the 2.3 GHz/3.0 GHz networks of
South Korea and other countries). Third parties can add in
extra chips to this hub -- say for EV-DO (3G) connectivity, or LTE
(4G) connectivity.

Intel's slides reveal that a number of the
biggest computer makers will be trying their hands at Windows tablets
(Oak Trail-powered, remember) in 2011. Those players include
Toshiba, Lenovo, Dell, ASUS, and Fujitsu. Conspicuously absent
was Acer (which is plugging Meego... more in a second) and HP, which
is presumably working on webOS designs.

A number of newer
names -- Motion Computing, Cosmos, and EXOPC will also be trying
their hand at Windows tablets. Expect a variety of form factors
(5-inch, 7-inch, 10-inch) from these players.

The slides also
reveal a number of Android and Meego tablets are incoming in 2011,
powered by Atom. Note these tablets may be running
Moorestown or Oak
Trail -- it's anyone's guess.

High-profile Android
tablet makers include ASUS, Cisco, AT&T, Lenovo, and Dell.
Open Peak and Avaya are a couple of the fresher faces. Meego, a
rival Linux distribution that's the fusion of Intel's Moblin
distribution codebase and Nokia's Maemo codebase, is also going to be
popping up in a handful of tablets. Acer is listed as
exclusively producing Meego tablets, which may give the platform a
boost. The remaining Meego partakers -- Indamixx, Gemtek, and
WeTab -- aren't exactly household names yet.

Intel's Windows
7, Android, and Meego tablets will combat the incredibly
popular iPad, and several existing Android designs, both of which
are based on the rival ARM architecture. Key ARM chipmakers
include Samsung (who co-designed the iPad's core with Intrinsity),
Qualcomm, and
NVIDIA.

As Intel's ARM
architecture rivals cook up ever nastier dual core designs, with
blazing speeds and lean power envelopes, Intel has let its own
smartphone offerings slip yet further into the future.
Intel had hoped to get something out the door in 2011, based on
previous comments, but Mr. Otellini's press conference left it
ambiguous whether Intel will actually ship smartphone products to
customers next year.

He stated, "It's a marathon, not a
sprint. ["Medfield" is] in customer sampling...for shipment
[in phones] in 2011 and 2012. You will see smartphones from
premier-branded vendors in the marketplace in [the second quarter of]
2011 with Intel silicon inside them."

Medfield relies on
a more advanced Atom core, the 32 nm successor to Silverthorne.

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The vast majority of people don't care enough to fuss around with a SLR camera.

Tablets are all about form factor, they're very good for non-techie people who just want to surf the web or the living room. They're simple, much like a point and shoot camera and some people prefer that.

His point was a smartphone would replace a point and shoot camera and a tablet. If you need a better camera - go SLR. if you need a bigger screen - go netbook/laptop.I really dont see a use for tablets apart from very specific needs.

Yeah, I think you're right in your interpretation. The main problem is that they're very wrong on the camera front, which is probably where the confusion has arisen. Unless they really live in a world where the only options that they think that anyone could ever want or need are narrow, often grainy pictures, or very good photos after you've worked out what lense you really need, composition etc etc.

I do love coming to DT to read some of the comments. How you guys can't see that these products are OPTIONS for people who MIGHT HAVE DIFFERENT NEEDS TO YOU, which are JUST AS VALID as your own.

Sometimes I think that some of you believe that the universe only exists as far as you can see it, disappearing behind a door when it closes. Only to be created when you open it again as you are the only people who matter in the entire universe.